1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a fluid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
Hitherto, as a fluid ejecting apparatus that ejects ink droplets onto a recording sheet (medium), an ink jet printer (hereinafter, referred to as a “printer”) has been widely known. In such a printer, there is a problem in that clogging of the nozzles occurs caused by thickening or solidification of the ink as the ink vaporizes from the nozzles of a recording head, the adhesion of dust, the infusion of bubbles, and the like, resulting in printing failure. Here, typically, in the printer, separately from the ejection of the ink onto a recording sheet, a flushing operation of forcibly discharging the ink in the nozzles is performed.
In a scan type printer, the flushing operation is performed by moving the recording head to an area other than a recording area. However, in a printer having a line head to which a recording head is fixed, the recording head cannot be moved during the flushing operation. Therefore, for example, a method of discharging the ink toward an absorbing member provided on the surface of the transport belt for transporting a recording sheet is considered (JP-A-2005-119284).
However, in the technique of JP-A-2005-119284, since a plurality of absorbing members is disposed at equal intervals according to the size of the recording sheet on the transport belt, ink has to be ejected while being aimed at a gap between the recording sheets during flushing, so that there is a problem in that there is a limit to the size and transport speed of the recording sheet. In addition, when flushing is performed on a plane-shaped absorbing member, there is concern that mist-like ink is dispersed due to the air pressure caused by the discharge of the ink droplets and thus the recording sheet or the transport belt is stained.
Here, it is considered that a line-shaped member is used as the absorbing member, the line-shaped absorbing member is disposed between the line head and the recording sheet (recording medium), and ink is ejected thereto to perform the flushing, such that the ink is accommodated in the absorbing member. In this case, the amount of ink that can be accommodated in the absorbing member is limited. Therefore, it is considered that when a certain amount of ink is accommodated, the absorbing member is moved such that flushing is performed on a new area of the absorbing member and ink is accommodated again.
However, when flushing is performed by the line-shaped absorbing member disposed below the nozzles, alignment between the nozzles and the absorbing member needs to be performed. On the other hand, when a printing process is performed, the absorbing member needs to be retracted from below the nozzles. In recent years, the printing process speed has increased, so that it naturally becomes preferable that the time needed to perform the flushing process be reduced. Here, it is preferable to provide a technique for performing position control with high precision while increasing the movement speed of the absorbing member between a flushing position and a non-flushing position.